Where Is Rook With The Future N2?

Where is Rook with the future N2?

-Rook Anon

Rook is the wildest, freest spirit that has ever walked this earth. He disappears for months and reappears out of the blue to hang at the Sunset Savanna palace like he completely belongs here. When Vil is away on a shoot, it's not rare that Rook accompanies him so that he doesn't feel lonely. That's their alone time together.

He regularly sends random pictures of sceneries and animals to Jamil and Vil, always sends best wishes on time for birthdays and festivities when he cannot be there, and sends at least one package a week of the most random thing he's found/bought.

He's also the weird uncle of the N2 children. Urcon and him get along an ungodly amount. The guards at the palace regularly find them hiding in bushes and observing the birds and insects flying around. They wax poetry about everything and nothing. Rook is very supportive of all of Urcon's strange interests.

The N2 Children

Koffi

A spry little girl who has far too much energy.

After a lengthy discussion, the N2 squad agreed to try for a kid. Leona now being the only one who doesn't mind mingling with another partner (polygamy is a staple for royalty in Sunset Savanah), he finds a good lady within the palace (probably a high ranked guard, very independent and energetic) that agrees to bear his child.

Koffi spends most of the time with her fathers but she does regularly hang with her mother too, though she calls her "Auntie" since Vil is her "Mama". Vil and Jamil are very friendly with Koffi's mother and they regularly have meals together.

Between her mother, Jamil, and Leona, Koffi has all the fighting training she needs to protect herself (and her brother).

Jamil is very good at handling Koffi since he has ADHD himself and is always moving (plus he is still used to Kalim’s antics.)

Urcon

A very curious and sweet child.

Vil just came home from a shooting one day with him in tow, and neither Jamil nor Leona questioned it.

Urcon learned cooking from Jamil and can't have enough of it. He also has a very weird obsession with poisons that neither Jamil nor Vil are responsible for, so they both have to regularly warn him against poisons. It doesn't seem to work at all though.

While he isn't one to fight, too busy having fun in nature to bother with annoying people, regularly wrestling with Koffi and Leona has taught him the basics. He is already pretty tall for his age and, as he grows up, the regular training gives him a rather impressive muscle mass.

Urcon gets along VERY WELL with Uncle Rook.

Koffi takes her role as big sister very seriously and regularly tells bullies off from her baby brother. She can be a bit loud and obnoxious about her role, sometimes butting in even when she is not needed.

Those two can become very competitive, to the point their fathers have to bodily separate them before they start throwing hands.

Most of the time though, Urcon is the one to keep Koffi from fighting. He drags her to come check anything he finds interesting, from little animals to his baking. Koffi doesn't always understand Urcon's interests ("Why are you showing me an acorn?") and can lose patience fast, but she does her best to still be supportive.

I’ll keep saying it: I hate the limitations there are to using Shock the Heart. I get why they’re there… but I still hate them. And here’s why.

If you break down Shock the Heart, it functions as any other sci-fi/fantasy “truth serum” does (i.e. Veritaserum, Lasso of Truth). It compels someone to tell the truth.

… Or rather, it compels someone to tell their truth.

Because the truth depends entirely on what a person knows.

Look at it this way: if you see Person A take a plate of cookies and then later see that plate empty, you’d probably say that Person A ate all the cookies. But suppose, unbeknownst to you, Person A actually shared those cookies with Person B.

If you tell someone that Person A ate all the cookies, you technically wouldn’t be lying, because the truth you have is just the truth you saw. To make it more complex, suppose you’re angry at Person A. Based on bias, you’d probably point a finger at them anyway, because your anger is your truth.

All this is to say: as with all other “truth serums,” the truth itself is Shock the Heart’s biggest limitation.

Only allowing Jade to use it on a person once and restricting its usage to weaker-willed, easy-to-trick mages seems like overkill.

Here you have a congregation of teenage boys, most of which have at least 10 ulterior motives and 20 traumatic experiences festering in their still-underdeveloped-brains, who never call each other “friends” and would sell each other out for One Corn Chip in a microsecond.

The process of wrangling the truth out of any of them is hard enough, but when you consider how twisted (no pun intended) each individual truth must be?

That’s a SUPER limitation already and would make for great conflict in the story.

….. also it would let us see Jade do this more often as a treat:

Make a wish!

I would fight the literal sun if it meant the N2 squad would be happy😩

So would I. So would I.

Being an artist is wanting to flex and then crying because you have to put in the hard work.